Social Media; The Engagement Opportunity

Exciting new opportunites to integrate Social Media technologies into core engagement solutions hold the promise of quickening the pace of innovation... and hint at reducing the cost and improving the impact of deliverying these important offerings to Corporate America.

By leveraging Social Media technologies, we can extend engagement feature sets with little or no development... and also expose proprietary features to program participants in the tools, portals and platforms they prefer.

This blog post will explore some of these opportunites. It's a work in progress, and collaborative input is requested... so your feedback is crucial.

Cheers,

- KeelFish

Social Media; The Engagement Opportunity

Connection

Tools and technologies that contribute to individuals feeling a sense of companionship, sameness or affiliation with a larger community.

Facebook

“Find a Friend”

We've created a Facebook widget that helps people tell their other Facebook friends about Engagement sites that they may not have enrolled to.

Communication

Tools and technologies that individuals use to receive information… their preferred ‘portal’ into their informal communication community.

Facebook

“Engagement Dashboard”

We've created a Facebook widget that helps participants keep track of their Engagement summary information, rather than access that in a portal they rarely visit.

Twitter

“Tweet, Rinse & Retweet”

We've placed Tweet this and Retweet this links on our Engagement sites to encourage program participants (authorized or otherwise) to communicate to their followers regarding the site, or site features which they think are interesting.

“Follow Us”

We provide Follow Us links on our Engagement sites to encourage program participant to become Twitter followers for a Twitter account that informs them of program features and news.
“Follow Me”

We've extended our profile page to allow participant to opt-in to pass on event communications (e.g. Bravo Receipt/Submit, Reward Redemption, etc.) via their own Twitter account and follower community.

HowCast

We've developed easy to use, context-sensitive ‘how to’ guides for site usage (e.g. how to unlock an account) or implement program features (e.g. how to recognize an employee). Leveraging the “picture is worth a thousand words” principle, HowCast makes it easy and fun to learn complex or not-often-used processes.

Google

"Google Friends"

We’re integrating Google Friends widget via Google’s API to provide community building with easy single sign on to ease service access.

Community Insight

Tools and technologies to organize and gain insight into the emotions and stream of consciousness of a given community on topical subject matters. We use of that insight to guide and optimize program features to influence engagement via specific responses.

Twitrratr / Twendz / ScoutLabs

These tools provide instant insight into the sentiment and stream of consciousness associated with Social Media dialog.

UserVoice

Crowdsourcing initiatives to generate innovative ideas for companies to further corporate goals and/or improve site features or usefulness.

Zoomerang

Standard Echo Survey insight to baseline participant attitudes and indentify program responses to treat challenges which impact employee engagement.

The Social Engagement model looks sort of like this:

What are your thoughts? How is your organization using Social Media technologies to extend their Engagement offering?

Build it and they will come!

I've watched the wonderful movie Field of Dreams several times, and admire it's positive messages and redemptive spirit.

I can relate to the "Build it and they will come..." line repeated throughout the movie, not because I play baseball, but rather that it reminds me of a point of view I'd help close earlier in my career:

"If I develop this cool system for [insert audience here], they'll all be amazed and use it regularly."

More that once I missed the mark and found that participation was lower than I'd hoped.

My associate Ben Leonard is doing some work for an advanced degree, and recently tuned me into a model that helps explain system usage factors. It's common sense stuff, but well ground in applied research and resonates well with me.

The "Technology Acceptance Model" follows:
















The basic message is the pay attention to the factors which influence the intent to use. Then, make sure you have system stability in place, so that when they do use the technology... it predicatably works as advertised.

Voila, you've now got a system people will engage with.

What's your experience with usability and build system that have high engagement? What lessons have you learned that you can share?

Cheers,

- KeelFish

Abraham Maslow; Architect

The title of a posting is intended to solicit readership... did I catch you on this one?

As a St. Cloud State undergraduate in the College of Liberal Arts, I found intellectual refuge and meaning in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It explained a lot, and gave me a basis for further study in human behavior.

I still refer to this model today (along with others, such as Festinger's Frustration-Aggression theory) when I consider motivators and forces that drive us as individuals in Corporate IT America.

As an IT Architect, I use models daily to describe and communicate framework and separation/layering principles which support effective and cost efficient solutions. A recent model is my (well, er... my implementation of) a Solution Hierarchy, based on our Marketing Services Architecture ©.

Here is a comparison of the two models:














The core feature that spans both models is the relationship that each layer has to the layer directly below it. Higher levels can be achieved only when lower level needs/attributes are satisfied.

Does this model contrast/comparison resonate with you?

What's been your experience with Maslow, with Architectural Laying?

Cheers,

- KeelFish

Process or People?

As I suspect of most of my valued readers, I've worked in many different IT shops... each with their own unique culture and development methodologies.

Have you noticed a common theme of those which are successful in developing solutions which served the business well?

In this post, I posit a foundational element of my core belief system... that people, not processes are the central key to successful IT efforts. I'll also comment on basic structural process components which (when applied in small doses) can support the development team and help them thrive in Corporate America IT.

Stay tuned!

KeelFish; A Brief History

What's in a name?

When my business partner (who happens to be my darling wife) and I merged our independent consulting firms, we settled on retention of her corporate identity, Windward Software and Consulting.

All the relevant domain names were taken, and we were anxious to extend our internet development practice, so scrambled to find a domain name we liked.

Both being sailors (she crewed and skippered a Laser 2 Class boat in the 1990's) we choose to incorporate the moniker 'Keel' in our brand. I added 'Fish' as a reference back to the days when I would jump under our family scow-hull (skippered by my brother John), grab the keel and 'fly' underwater.

KeelFish was born.

As I work in and observe Corporate America, I often do so from the Keel... under the vessel.

The view from the engine room and cockpit are equally insightful!

I hope your journey is an interesting one.

- KeelFish

It's the Relationship, Silly.

Promoting positive relationships as a key to successful project teams in Corporate America IT while describing my valued readers as "Silly" seems counter-intuitive... if indeed I was describing my readers.

No shame intended, it's my (early career) self I'm describing!

This post will share my POV on the significance of positive working relationships, trust, respect and leadership to overcome the challenges of working in cross-functional teams.

Viewed from my humanistic vantage, positive relations make sense intuitively... it's the right thing to do and feels good. A more calculating approach focuses on the economic value for positive working relationships... they pay benefits in my ability to get things done.

What experiences have you had in Corporate America? Does collaboration work for you?

Stay tuned!

Marketing Services Architecture

In October 2007 my work mate Ben Leonard and I formalized our thinking on SOA adoption within the Enterprise Engagement line of business for Carlson Marketing Worldwide, describing the essentials of a model for our Marketing Services Architecture ©.

Key requirements for our model include:

• Reuse of functionality from our legacy portfolio
• A clear roadmap toward seperation of architectural layers
• Ease of integration for new services
• A supporting implimentation model based on flexibility, reponsiveness and value (aka low cost)

Primary solution implementation candidates for the model focus on employee engagement/loyalty and sales/channel performance incentive Clients across most vertical markets (e.g. financial, technology, telecommunication, pharma, transportation, etc.)

This post will further describe the Marketing Services Architecture © (aka MSA) and document our challenges and (hopeful!) success stories with its adoption.

Stay tuned!